Adelaide coach Brenton Sanderson says the Crows are focused on the tough year ahead. Picture: Sarah Reed. Source: The Advertiser
ADELAIDE is emerging from a ho-hum pre-season vowing its indifferent summer form is not a sign of a team still basking in last year's rise to an AFL pacesetter.
Crows coach Brenton Sanderson says: "The hunger is still there.
"And we're ready ... we're hungry," added Sanderson who last season lifted Adelaide from 14th to second in the home-and-away series.
This promise will be put to the test in Friday night's AFL premiership season-opener at AAMI Stadium when the Crows are potentially walking into an ambush against an Essendon team determined to respond to its off-field, drug-based turmoil.
It will be the first warning to the Crows of how their now-prized scalp will be hunted this season.
But from captain Nathan van Berlo to Rising Star young defender Daniel Talia, the Crows players say they still have the hungry mentality of a team that wants to hunt glory in September.
"We've spoken about that in the pre-season - a lot of teams are going to come after us because we had a pretty good year with a top-four finish last year," said Talia.
"But we have to turn that back on ourselves - we have to say, we're still hungry; we achieved nothing last year, really. We did not make the grand final. We did not win the premiership as we wanted to.
"We want to go one better by making that grand final and winning it. And until we do we have done that, we should always be the team that is hungry.
"If people want to hunt us, we'll turn it back and hunt them."
Adelaide barely defended its pre-season NAB Cup title this summer while finishing the series with a 2-2 record filled with inconsistency. But Talia and van Berlo insist the scoreboard results fail to reflect Adelaide's planning for the premiership season.
"It has been a quiet pre-season ... but we have been focussed on what we are going to do (in the premiership season)," said Talia.
Van Berlo, who yesterday signed a three-year extension to his contract, adds the pre-season has delivered an
Adelaide team that is physically "stronger, fitter and faster" than last year.
Mentally the Crows are also primed to do better in Season 2013, van Berlo insists.
"We've trained harder this pre-season to have our bodies in better shape," said van Berlo. "But the attitude and hunger of the group is certainly there. We're burning to improve.
"While our performances (in the pre-season) have been criticised, we know we are very well prepared going into Round 1.
"We recognise the expectation (to be a top-four contender again) is there. That provides another challenge for the playing group. Last year we set out to try to re-establish the football club as a competitive unit, a team that other clubs would respect.
"We made some in-roads into that last year with the way we played our footy and the way we finished off our year.
But that is just one year. To be the club we want to become, we need to sustain that for years on end.
"The playing group is under no illusion that it is just going to happen for us - or that last year was a great year and we'll rest on hats on that. We need to knuckle down now and make sure this year and the years to come are consistent."
Adelaide on Thursday is expected to name just one debutant - teenage midfielder Brad Crouch who, by AFL rules, could not play last year despite being on the Crows list.
"He has shown in the pre-season that he is capable of handling the (AFL) level and intensity," said van Berlo.
"There has been a lot spoken about Brad; he is going to have some expectations to live up to, but he is a really hungry young guy who is going to keep working hard not just this year but years to come.
"We're nowhere near to having seen the best of Brad Crouch yet, but he has certainly has put his best foot forward in the pre-season. If he gets his chance on Friday night, he has deserved his spot."
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